(05-Nov-2017 08:12 PM)noel Wrote: I've got 3 sons John, all attached 2 married and the third has no intention, and 6 grandchildren. Woodville St. right by the side of the old school which incidentally hasn't altered since we were there. Even the metal framed windows . Though there is a pre-school nursery run on the bottom corridor. Off Canberra Rd. very close to that other school we went to, and the furthest away lives in Penwortham. He spent several years on the IOM and thoroughly enjoyed it. ,so we are always on baby sitting rota though thankfully the youngest starts school next September, we have him 2 days a week all day from 6am to after 5pm and it gets hard at times. I've only been to Huddersfield once back in the sixties, they still had trolley buses in those days.

Sorry - I don't know what made me think you had daughters.
I can sympathise regarding the looking after of youngsters.....we had my partners grandaughter here 2 days a week from being a baby, now it's only 1 day but we're both exhausted after entertaining a 3 year old all day!
We're far enough away from my own Yorkshire grandaughters to escape childminding - I only see them on 'state visits' every few weeks.

I drove along Woodville St and Mill St earlier this year, good to see the old school there. I wonder if they still ring the hand bell at that entrance on the bottom corridor? It's surprising that the original school doesn't seem to have been enlarged, there must be more families in the area now....but I suppose Lever House school took the increase.

Probably on the same visit to Leyland I drove up Moss Lane and then Bow Lane. I was sad to find a housing estate on the fields where I spent hours as a lad, all around Bow Brook. Oh well, people have to live somewhere I suppose...........

Buildings going up allover the area John. When we moved back up here, our house was being built on what was called Painters field, as, if you recall, there was a huge advert for Leyland paints by the side of the train track where Farington station used to be. So that's the paint the painters use, said the sign. Croston Rd. we live off has had 7 new estates for housing since then and more are planned . When we attended junior school uk population was just over 50 million I think, it's projected to become 70 million by the end of the next decade.

Talking of hand bell, the head used to wait by the boys' entrance with his cane in hand and last boy in...lovely chap.

It's a bit sad to see that Leyland has become not much more than a dormitory town for Manchester. It used to be such a hive of industrial activity. Are Iddon Brothers and Leyland Paint & Varnish still in business? I haven't visited for about 12 years and haven't kept tabs on everything.

Since my sister has medical issues that make long airplane flights a real problem, we might be visiting sometime in autumn 2018 or the following spring, I'll be 77 next September, so who knows if we'll make it.

(07-Nov-2017 10:40 AM)noel Wrote: Buildings going up allover the area John. When we moved back up here, our house was being built on what was called Painters field, as, if you recall, there was a huge advert for Leyland paints by the side of the train track where Farington station used to be. So that's the paint the painters use, said the sign. Croston Rd. we live off has had 7 new estates for housing since then and more are planned . When we attended junior school uk population was just over 50 million I think, it's projected to become 70 million by the end of the next decade.

Talking of hand bell, the head used to wait by the boys' entrance with his cane in hand and last boy in...lovely chap.

I wasn't familiar with that sign Noel - I seldom went so far afield! There was another big sign right opposite where I used to sit trainspotting at the bottom of Boundary St....it announced the halfway point between London and Glasgow. Can't remember if it advertised Leyland Motors or Leyland Paints.
Are there houses now at Farington lodge (not the one near the park, but down Lodge Lane I think, off Croston Rd and next to the Southport railway line)? I used to fish there many moons ago.
I've been visiting and now living in Buckingham for nearly 6 years, and in that time it's virtually doubled in size, no kidding, thanks to 2 enormous estates on the edge of town. It's the pull of Oxford, Milton Keynes, even London for work which makes it attractive I suppose.

(07-Nov-2017 04:44 PM)anacortesdamp Wrote: It's a bit sad to see that Leyland has become not much more than a dormitory town for Manchester. It used to be such a hive of industrial activity. Are Iddon Brothers and Leyland Paint & Varnish still in business? I haven't visited for about 12 years and haven't kept tabs on everything.

Since my sister has medical issues that make long airplane flights a real problem, we might be visiting sometime in autumn 2018 or the following spring, I'll be 77 next September, so who knows if we'll make it.

Frank

For a small town Leyland certainly created a lot of jobs didn't it......engineering, paint, rubber, textiles...........
The paint works closed a long time ago, 1990s or maybe earlier, and there are houses on the site now. You can still buy Leyland brand paint but it's made in West Yorkshire I believe. As for Iddon Bros, they are still operating but part of NFM Welding Engineers of Ohio (the internet tells me!).
There are lots of small enterprises now on modern industrial estates around Leyland but it's unlikely that they employ the numbers that once flooded into town. When I was young I wasn't allowed out at teatime because of the traffic on Preston Rd.
I guess it must be a longish flight from your side of the States Frank. Would you break the journey part way? I find long flights very boring and envy people who can just sleep for most of the journey (as long as they aren't next to me!).

No estate YET on Lodge Lane John, just the couple of houses that have been there a long time. SRBC had a wood carving of a kingfisher which cost £5k to commission , placed at the Lodge Lane end of the waters snapped in 2 by the usual suspects. https://www.southribble.gov.uk/content/v...ton-lodges
A similar one is at Brickcroft in Walmer Bridge. Iused to fish too in my youth down there. Virtually every cast caught a gudgeon, small but mighty. Recently the lodges were polluted by a massive fire at Whitcroft, the sawdust company next door to the lodge on Church Lane.

A non-stop from Seattle to Heathrow takes about 9 hours and the return is close to 10 (jet-stream winds blowing west to east). We can take other airlines that make a stop-over or change of planes than the two non-stops. Icelandair is by far the cheapest and stops in Reykyavik. It's a fairly short stop-over east-bound, but you're on the ground for 4 hours west-bound. A big advantage is that they go from Manchester as well as Gatwick. Their east-bound service is about 12 hours end-to-end.

Since Anacortes is just about equidistant (100 miles either way) from SeaTac and Vancouver airports, we have a choice of departure points. To get to SeaTac we have to go through Seattle on a very congested I-5 motorway. To Vancouver we have to cross the border into Canada. I think we might start out from Bellingham next time, as there are commuter flights to SeaTac that take about 30 minutes. You stay air-side at SeaTac and your bags are checked through to LHR or LGW. It would be a couple of hundred dollars for the two of us, but worth the elimination of the SeaTac check-in shambles.

(08-Nov-2017 10:49 AM)noel Wrote: No estate YET on Lodge Lane John, just the couple of houses that have been there a long time. SRBC had a wood carving of a kingfisher which cost £5k to commission , placed at the Lodge Lane end of the waters snapped in 2 by the usual suspects. https://www.southribble.gov.uk/content/v...ton-lodges
A similar one is at Brickcroft in Walmer Bridge. Iused to fish too in my youth down there. Virtually every cast caught a gudgeon, small but mighty. Recently the lodges were polluted by a massive fire at Whitcroft, the sawdust company next door to the lodge on Church Lane.

Shame about the kingfisher........bored youths eh? I knocked about with a gang in my teens and we got up to all sorts of crackpot things, but it never involved vandalism, drugs or knives. We didn't need any of that.

I wonder how long the fishery will take to recover, presumably they'll try to restock it. That reminds me - is the lodge on Centurion Way still there, in a field opposite what was Leyland Motor Corp HQ office block? In the late 50s there was a polio outbreak and that reservoir was drained temporarily to contain the outbreak (somehow). When it refilled me and a mate used to carry fish caught in local ponds and put them in there.........I hope they and their descendants prospered.

(08-Nov-2017 04:41 PM)anacortesdamp Wrote: John:

A non-stop from Seattle to Heathrow takes about 9 hours and the return is close to 10 (jet-stream winds blowing west to east). We can take other airlines that make a stop-over or change of planes than the two non-stops. Icelandair is by far the cheapest and stops in Reykyavik. It's a fairly short stop-over east-bound, but you're on the ground for 4 hours west-bound. A big advantage is that they go from Manchester as well as Gatwick. Their east-bound service is about 12 hours end-to-end.

Since Anacortes is just about equidistant (100 miles either way) from SeaTac and Vancouver airports, we have a choice of departure points. To get to SeaTac we have to go through Seattle on a very congested I-5 motorway. To Vancouver we have to cross the border into Canada. I think we might start out from Bellingham next time, as there are commuter flights to SeaTac that take about 30 minutes. You stay air-side at SeaTac and your bags are checked through to LHR or LGW. It would be a couple of hundred dollars for the two of us, but worth the elimination of the SeaTac check-in shambles.

We'll see a bit nearer the time if we do decide to visit.

Frank

Well I hope you make it Frank.
Next summer we'll be in the USA for a couple of weeks - sailing into New York on the Queen Mary 2 (a long-held ambition), having a few days there and then up to Boston area for a while before flying home. I'm really looking forward to it. Almost 25 years since I was last across the Atlantic, again on the east coast.